Like Matthew McConaughey playing a Resident Evil protagonist with the mindset of Joe Dirt! After playing all the Gun survivor games this one definitely was the best of all. Given you a full blown game to playthrough with its own unique story and adding a mix of classic Resident Evil with the first person guncon gameplay. Villain was kinda goofy, but a good bit of weapons and locations to explore even though the game was so short. I like how they tie it in to other games as well. I really wish we would get more love of some of these other characters instead of Chris and Leon. So many great characters we need updates on and not just through CGI films "cough" Rebecca Chambers "cough". Can easily be played through controller as well. Once you get used to the controls it feels good to get those headshots in and feels damn satisfying making the zombies bounce to the walls.

Resident Evil: O reino da beleza

O titulo dessa analise deveria ser o titulo do jogo, pois todo o plot do game gira em torno disso mesmo: beleza kkkkkk sério, enquanto eu escrevo isso eu só consigo rir. Essa é a segunda vez que jogo esse game e a primeira foi sei lá, há mais de 15 anos atrás, quando eu não sabia nada de inglês então eu só joguei sem saber o que se passava, mas agora, descobrindo o plot... pelo amor de deus é o PURO SUCO DA GALHOFA kkkkkk

O vilão mais excêntrico que a franquia já teve e vai MUITO além do Alfred de Code Veronica, além de na real o Morpheus (nome do vilão e esse nome meio do que já dá um spoiler do que acontece por ele ser metamorfo no game) ser MUITO inspirado nos vilões de Code Veronica e as mutações dele também e todas (as duas) envolvem algum aspecto da beleza.

Agora, deixando um pouco a beleza de lado, vou falar sobre o restante do jogo, não que exista muita coisa pra falar, mas vamos lá:

- Dificuldade: bem fácil, apesar de ter momentos que o jogo, sem explicação alguma, spawna uma caralhada de inimigos no seu caminho e em duas lutas contra bosses onde eles são totalmente bugados e dão muito dano por você não conseguir se levantar sem tomar outra porrada. Se não conseguir usar a esquiva, pode ser um looping de alguns danos idiotas e que tornam a experiências frustrante.

- Inimigos: zumbis e hunters são os inimigos base e tem alguns outros que não são memoráveis. Tipo o Glimmer e o Nautilius, dois inimigos que você consegue passar por eles de forma muito fácil pois eles são irrelevantes e nem exigem o mínimo de combate. Tem um tytant totalmente aleatório que é fácil de deter e outros inimigos que se tornam chefes, além é claro do rei da beleza (que tem uma das boss battles mais chatas que eu já joguei na vida).

- Gameplay: jogando com controle normal é BEM ruim de pegar o jeito, a movimentação é horrível pois independente do quando você coloque para frente para andar, o boneco sempre vai correr, então é ruim demais de controlar. Mirar com o controle é bem tenso pois o hitbox é impreciso, apesar de que eu confesso que é satisfatório dar critical hit nos zumbis, mas tirando isso, o restante é ruim.

- Personagens: Só temos 3 kkkkk isso pra você ter uma ideia do quão raso o jogo é. O protagonista e a coadjuvante que são enviados para o local onde se passa o game para os mesmos fins e um tenta dificultar a vida do outro até que eles passam a cooperar pelas necessidades e o Rei da beleza, um ex funcionário da Umbrella que roubou várias amostras de vírus para colocar seus planos em prática.

- História: não tem o que falar muito aqui, pois é ruim, fraca, sem profundidade e sem criatividade.

Resumo: A beleza não foi alcançada!

The first of the Gun Survivor series felt like a genuine effort to keep continuity with the core Resident Evil titles. Sure, it was a spinoff light-gun game, but it was still recognisably Resident Evil, bringing the slow paced, explorative style of Resi into a different genre. Keys, notes, herbs, a little bit of ammo conservation... it wasn't a good game, but in its adherence to series conventions it was quite a charming little thing.

Survivor 2 gave up on this completely, eschewing the series' identity in favour of being a generic arcade shooter. Its execution was even worse than the first game's, and without that Resi identity to prop it up it really was worthless. I skipped the third in the series, Dino Stalker, as it's actually a Dino Crisis spinoff rather than RE. From what I've seen it looks to be a follow-up to the style of Survivor 2, though a lot more competent and less of a betrayal of series identity, given the direction Dino Crisis 2 took.

All this said, imagine my joy when I start playing Dead Aim and I'm not being timed. In fact, everything's very quiet... and dark. Bodies on the floor, but they're not getting up. Are they zombies? Ooooh, a locked door! Wait... LIMITED AMMO?!

Dead Aim is a follow-up to Survivor! Thank god. It's still a bit shit, but the atmosphere is surprisingly strong. Sensible improvements have been made, such as having a reload button, and moving in third person makes encounters much more readable. I'm missing the alternate routes and encounters from that first game, but otherwise this is an improvement across the board.

I loved this. It hit that perfect sweet spot of mediocrity, being just good enough while at the same time being just shit enough to keep me entranced for a couple of hours. I recommend putting subtitles on for cutscenes and revel in the dissonance between what they claim the characters are saying and what they actually say.

House of the Dead meets Resi. Fixed camera with tank steering to stab walls while walking, a motherload of closed doors and no-minimap on sight. Find a key and seek the damn door, door-by-door while zombies re-spawn in rooms you've already cleared. Makes a 3 hour stroll if you don't walk on circles. Takes on the most mansion looking boat i'd ever see and the non-canon plot is akin to mindless 80's VHS action. Exists entirely for a terribly sold light-gun. The first zombie apparition scared the living skies outta me when i first played it, but now it makes a Jehova's witness simulator growing up for the amount of closed doors i kept facing. The murky low-poly aesthetic is charming for this type of throwaway survivor horror, makes it seem like a puppet combo.

Here is another side-game from the RE series that's often forgotten, Dead Aim! I have to admit it is an interesting hybrid idea here, better than Survivor 2, however, it still isn't a very good RE game. It's not terrible, but it's not great and suffers from some janky animations, especially the facial ones!

I do love the design of some new monsters created from the T+G virus, however, the idea that is adds electrical powers because SCIENCE is hilarious to me.

I'm confused as to what they were attempting to do with the main character who looked like discount Sephorith, but as he was wounded in the opening cut-scene he injects himself with the virus to become a tyrant that is very feminine in appearance! Complete with visable bumps on the chest (no nipples), curvy hips and feet shaped like high-heels.

I feel like there was a different angle this game was going for, but we never saw it in the translation. From doing further research there's a suggestion of different potential meanings to it. The character loved beauty in everything, including himself, so he took HRT to keep himself looking youthful and it could be merely how the virus reacted with it or as Sphere Hunter suggested, it could be how the Virus turns people into their inner, base desires and the character was actually trans? It's very hard to tell, especially with the history in places like Japan in regards to "Traps" and other such cultural things over there or villains appearing feminine like in the Final Fantasy series. It makes it worse that there is no actual confirmation on if it's my idea that the character, named Morpheus, was transformed that way from his own base desire like suggested with others or if it really is just because of being on HRT when the virus was introduced into his system, like how mixing drugs can give off different effects.

(Though, him being made Morpheus and considering what The Matrix was actually meant to be trying to deliver...maybe someone in the closet did this on purpose?)

Anyway, it's a discussion to be had regardless.

The game itself, as mentioned before, tries to do this hybrid thing of 3rd person when walking around and exploring, but as soon as you aim it becomes like a FPS. Kind of like Fatal Frame, but if it was guns instead of the camera obscure!

The issue with this is with fast firing weapons like machine guns as the occasional flash, especially in regards to Fatal Frame, won't be too bad on the eyes but if you use the machine gun you get, there's such bright flashes that it's almost a damn strobing effect! I don't recommend playing it in the dark or if you're in any way susceptible to epileptic fits!

It was a good thing I had watched Sphere Hunter's video before making this review because a major feature of the game, which you are never once told, is that you can actually sneak past enemies! It seems this T+G Virus rotted the eyeballs out of zombies and such so you can potentially sneak past and not waste all of your ammo like I did! That said, save-points have nearly limitless ammo so I never once suspected that I was using up too much ammo at any moment. Sneaking is the strategy for fighting the boss Pluto who is a huge creature, once human, that's blind but listens to your footsteps to come after you.

Again, the game, though fun, is certainly not great. Out of all the other forgotten side-games, I'd say it was the best out of all of them. There's all the side-games apart from Code Veronica that were on the PS2 and certainly better than the first Survivor game too!

Stream/Gameplay

Strongest and most consistent atmosphere in the series besides RE1. The sound design, heralded by none other than Nobuyoshi Sano himself is nothing short of masterful and haunting, ambience and subtlety are a horror strength oft ignored. What’s already there visually is incredible on its own but with a man of his talent enhancing it through meticulous sound design? Holy shit. I thought the story was alright, it’s mostly carried by its setting and being short and cohesive, the relationship between Bruce and Fongling was neat. The light-gun gameplay mixed into third person was refreshing and fun, i really wish there was more of this. Awesome game overall.

“A “Don-Gua” never abandons a woman.”

The cheesiest and most low budget RE game to ever exist: so awful it's good voice acting with bizarre fluctuations in accents, cgi cutscenes with creaky animations and way too much slow mo effects, subtitles not matching at all with what the characters are saying in scene, knock off Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong protagonists, goofy low poly models with Bruce getting hit the worst with a hilariously unpolished model sporting a giraffe neck in every cutscene, Bruce's cringy one liner after taking down Morpheus, the literal J-rap rock theme song of the game "Gun-Shot". How does this game even exist and was actually released by Capcom?

Most of what this game tries to execute ends up being pretty mediocre but I can't say it's a complete trainwreck; the synth-heavy music and dark atmosphere is strangely unique for the series and added a tinge of haunting vibes to the ship "exploration", something I can't really say about the later entries that also have ship levels. The save room theme surprised me with how much I loved it despite how little it is encountered during the campaign.

Movement and gameplay is a mess. The tank controls were fine, but the moving and shooting just felt off and clunky the entire time and especially in transition from one to another and vice versa. The sneak mechanic is pretty underutilized for how much it can change zombie encounters, and I never really used or even knew about it till I was close to the end of the game. Also underutilized is the dodge/block mechanic that's similar to RE3 Nemesis and it's just vastly superior to it and it just breaks all encounters???? What is this game??

Anyways, Dead Aim has absolutely no replay value after finishing it and the gameplay is a little too janky for me to return to it, but it was cool to have finally checked out this bizarre RE spin off. Capcom should do more of these today, along with a new outbreak game.

Also did not play with a guncon, unfortunately.

If you've kept up with my previous reviews, you'd probably already know that I'm not a huge fan of Capcom's Gun Survivor franchise. I didn't play Dino Stalker, but both Resident Evil: Survivor and its sequel are some of the worst games that franchise has to offer. Resident Evil: Dead Aim was the first RE title developed by Cavia, known for the Drakengard games. Despite Dead Aim's uncharacteristically low sales and mixed reception, they would later go on to develop The Umbrella Chronicles and its sequel for the Nintendo Wii. Directed by Eiro Shirahama and Takuya Iwasaki, Dead Aim would serve as the final nail in the coffin for Gun Survivor. Did they manage to make the franchise good for once? Dead Aim marks a significant improvement over its predecessors, though not enough to make it worthwhile.

The story was written by a trio of writers, with Resident Evil veteran scenario writer Noboru Sugimura heading the pack, being his last contribution to the series. Unfortunately, every single aspect of it is underdeveloped. The game opens in medias res with American secret agent Bruce McGivern held at gunpoint by Morpheus D. Duvall, a rouge Umbrella executive who threatened both the United States and China with bioweapons of mass destruction. A shadowed figure tosses a grenade at the two, giving Bruce time to escape deep into the bowels of the Spencer Rain cruise ship. From there, Bruce meets Fongling, a Chinese agent with whom he forms an uneasy infatuation and alliance. If you think any of this sounds interesting, sadly, it's not explored in any great detail. Bruce and Fongling have no character development and they feel like very blatant stand-ins for Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong respectively, giving off intense "original the character" vibes. Morpheus isn't a strong villain either. He gets very little screentime before suddenly deciding to become the big scary mutated bad guy. His only personality trait is being obsessed with beauty, even asking Bruce why Americans choose the ugliest guns. We barely get enough time to be introduced to these characters, and the plot doesn't take them anywhere. Bruce and Fongling, of course, predictably fall in love, which has no payoff. Naturally, the game ends with Morpheus mutating into a giant, bloated monster who gets blown up with the rest of the underground laboratory, because of course there's an underground lab. None of this is satisfying and it feels more like fanfiction than a screenplay written by the writer of Resident Evil 2.

Dead Aim continues Gun Survivor's tradition of attempting to mix survival horror and light gun shooters, and like the previous games, it does not work. Nothing about Dead Aim's game design really works in general. Exploration is done from a third-person perspective, similarly to Resident Evil 4, but when fighting enemies the camera snaps to a first-person perspective. I still can't figure out exactly how to emulate a Namco GunCon, so I played with a gamepad, and honestly, it doesn't play too bad with one. It takes some getting used to, but it does feel relatively responsive. What I don't like is the camera system, which still has Survivor's problem of jerking around whenever fast-moving enemies are on screen. This not only looks bad but can also be frustrating when fighting the hunter elites, which in hunter fashion tend to leap around the map. Previous games indicated that a zombie was dead by a pool of blood forming underneath, but Dead Aim has no such courtesy. It's hard to tell if zombies are actually dead or not, as they tend to play dead after you've downed them, leading to them sneaking up on you after you've moved on. This is a terrible design oversight that just makes an otherwise easy game so much more frustrating. On the other hand, the block move, if you time it correctly, eliminates any shred of difficulty the game has, even reducing the mighty Tyrant 091 into a joke. This strange difficulty balancing just makes encounters feel weird, as I feel like I shouldn't be cheesing the block, but the game lets me do it anyway. Oddly enough though, the game does remain somewhat fun. Blowing holes in zombies will always have some inherently entertaining element to it no matter how poorly designed, so I wasn't really bored by Dead Aim. The game is also ridiculously short, taking me only 3 hours to beat it. If I paid full price for this back in 2003, I'd be pretty pissed off.

Visually, Dead Aim resembles shovelware of the lowest variety. Running on the id Tech 3 engine of Quake 3 fame, Dead Aim looks flat and lifeless. Environments are sparsely detailed, without any impression that the cruise ship was once populated by living people. Character models are low-poly, resembling a PC game from 1999. They all animate like a design student's first project, rigidly. Zombie models are visibly blocky and enemies, in general, don't leave a lasting impression. Considering this is the same year and console that Silent Hill 3 came out on, this is inexcusable. None of the new enemies have striking designs. The glimmers' glowing heads are kind of cool, but otherwise, they're just yet another frog enemy. The new tyrant actually looks pretty cool, but I wouldn't exactly call its design exceptional. Morpheus's monster design looks like a b-grade Alexia Ashford, which is a design I wasn't particularly fond of, to begin with. Like all previous RE games, Dead Aim uses pre-rendered FMV cutscenes, and these are wildly inconsistent in their quality. The most important scenes are rendered with some pretty slick-looking CGI which looks and animates rather well, they're even shot rather nicely too. The main problem with these FMVs is that the editing is atrocious, with many unnecessary slow-motion scenes and quick cuts which interrupt the action and make it feel like an early 2000s nu-metal video. The less important scenes are treated to FMVs that are less than savory, so to speak. While models are somewhat more detailed and expressive than their in-game counterparts, they animate terribly and this can often lead to faces looking really funny. They're also plagued by aliasing, which frankly makes them look unfinished.

Although I've found the vast majority of this game rather pitiful, I actually found the soundtrack, composed by Nobuyoshi Sano, to be rather unique. While I'm not as big of a fan of it as some are, I have to admit it's an oddly bright spot in an otherwise broken game. In fact, Dead Aim's save room theme is probably my favorite in the entire series. It's simplistic but incredibly evocative and hits an atmosphere the others don't really touch. It's more synth-heavy than previous titles, and I appreciate the constant use of flange and reverb effects. To paraphrase YouTuber ThorHighHeels, it does feel oddly atmospheric. Save Room, Battle Tyrant, and Scream in the Darkness are my favorites of the bunch. Escape Now is the only track I wasn't a fan of, as it is just a repetitive piano being smashed relentlessly.

The voice acting in Dead Aim is, as many would claim, "fits RE standard". It's hilariously bad in every respect. Raj Ramayya sounds uninterested as Bruce, playing him as a ditzy idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. Angus Waycott plays Morpheus as a "British villain" and he's probably the best of the bunch, but that really isn't saying much and by and large it isn't a good performance. Claire O'Connor's Fongling is... a slightly offensive Chinese stereotype. None of these performances carry dramatic weight and while some would argue they add to the charm, I didn't find it nearly as funny as say, Survivor or RE1.

Resident Evil: Dead Aim was the last Gun Survivor game for a good reason. Although it does manage to improve upon its predecessors, it still struggles with a cookie-cutter narrative, d-list "original" characters, broken gameplay, and visuals that resemble the worst of Wii shovelware. Thankfully, the soundtrack is pretty interesting, but you're better off just listening to it on YouTube.

Heroes Never Die...

Pretty much went in blind with this, not knowing anything about it other than how great a save room theme it has (as well as the vocal version) and had a surprisingly good time with it. The controls were a bit clunky in some areas, like the lack of being able to look down and no quick turn, which made for a bit of sluggish dodging and weaving during boss fights. Only died once on the final boss due to the aim snapping to way above its head, making me unable to move the aim back down in time. Other than that, the third person movement is slightly rough, being pre-RE4, but still definitely manageable, with the one benefit being that you can at least move around a bit while aiming, even if very slowly. Definitely came a long way from the first Survivor game. Another thing of note is that ammo is in absolute abundance in this. I often found myself having to leave some good ammo behind because I just had so much shotgun ammo, pretty much being the main gun I used through most of the game. Doesn't help that enemies sometimes also drop ammo, made more ridiculous when you kill a zombified maintenence worker and they drop a frickin 100 round assault rifle mag. The guns are quite satisfying in this, even if the flash of the assault rifle is quite bright.

The story was a little weird, but entertaining. Cowboy Bruce McGivern and, after a brief rivalry, his newfound Chinese partner Fong Ling, aboard a ship at sea, both after ̶S̶e̶p̶h̶i̶r̶o̶t̶h̶ Morpheus (not that one), a dude turned hot, intelligent electric female tyrant turned abomination, with a bunch of other typical boss creatures thrown in throughout as they find themselves in yet another Umbrella facility. Lots of over the top slow motion moments, almost to comedic effect. Some good enemy designs mixed in with surprisingly good atmosphere, having multiple areas that were actually creepy, and some moments that can actually get a jump out of you or get your butt clenching.

It's a bit of a short experience, finishable in under 3 hours, but it's definitely worth checking out.